Time Management & Personality Types

A Guest Blog by Jennifer Dornbush, writer and INFJ

I make a disclaimer right from the top, that no, I am not going to try to blame bad time management on nature. If you have serious time management problems, they are the undisciplined offspring of bad nurturing. What I am going to offer is that having a better understanding of your personality type can help you redefine your time management so you can ease over the speed humps of this writing life.

I was recently the guinea pig for a friend who was becoming certified to administer the Myers-Briggs personality test. I’ve taken this test before so I was pretty sure how it would turn out. Overall I have pretty darn good time management skills. I have routines that I stick to. What I really wanted to know was how I could get unstuck in a few areas I’ve always struggled with. One is feeling debilitating frustration with the longevity of projects. And second, not seeing them take off once they’re completed. It seems like no matter how much I plan or set aside time for marketing and networking, it just wasn’t happening in a way it needs to in order to gain some traction.

I was somewhat relieved when I got the test results and it revealed that being a Writer was the second most picked profession for someone with my personality type. For those of you unfamiliar with Myers-Briggs, you are tested to fall into four categories. The last category reveals that you have either strong P = perceiving tendencies. Or J = judging tendencies. A person who is more of a “P” is comfortable allowing decisions and projects to be open-ended.  A “J” desires closure to feel satisfied.

I tested as a hard and fast “J”. Being a “J” helps me to manage my time and work productively. And it works really well for short-term projects (like articles, blogs, or short scripts). What I’ve learned is that the writing life and the business of writing is a big, fat “P”. Long-term projects like novels and screenplays take months and years to finish. So does researching and finding the right agent, publisher, production company.

I was relieved to finally uncover the tension I had lived with for so long. In my mind, it seemed like I had become a bad manager of my time.  What a relief to learn from my counseling friend, that no, I am not. Whether you’re a “P” or a “J”, let me share seven sparkles of advice from my struggles and most recent breakthrough.

1) Personality tests are great devices to help you get unstuck and stop feeling guilty about perceived “failures” in your writing life. Get analyzed.

2) Recognize your strengths and your challenges. Here I was a “J” living in a “P” world and wondering why I was always so exhausted when it seemed like I was doing everything right. My friend likened this to trying to write with the opposite hand. I can do it, but it’s slow, tiring, and I can only take so much at a time.

3) Vary your life with writing projects that can give more immediate results and will also build up your portfolio. In other words, do something regularly that plays into your strengths. For me, that means I pepper my writing work with articles, blogs, short scripts, web content, promo copy – anything that requires from two to twenty hours of work and will be delivered to an audience in a relatively quick turnaround time. I happen to subscribe to the philosophy that it’s also good exercise for the brain to work in new formats.

4) For larger projects, set little goals within that project. Celebrate when you complete them. Allow yourself a reward. (My favorite rewards are mini-vacations or shopping trips. Nice to see you again, LA Fashion District!)

5) Find a writing partner. This is not necessarily someone to co-write with, but someone you can see or talk to once a week about your writing. My partner and I meet once a week at the library. We catch up. Write. Talk some more. Write. Brainstorm. Write. Eat dinner.

6) Get into a writer’s group. Make it regular.

7) And my most favorite and newest goal — find a career coach. I’m looking for a person who is a few steps ahead of me (especially in the publishing/producing arena) to meet with me regularly to help me set goals for networking and marketing. I’m depending on this person to keep me accountable and hopefully, he or she’s a “P.”

Jennifer Dornbush is a writer and story developer in Los Angeles.
Please visit her at http://www.simplystatedwriting.com or http://www.jenniferdornbush.com